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Show HN: InstaMotor – Taking the pain out of selling your car

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Re: Show HN: InstaMotor – Taking the pain out of selling your car

#31

Post by amalag »

petercooper wrote: post #23

It's a totally different business model to this but http://www.webuyanycar.com/ is a pretty big deal here in the UK. You get a valuation, take your car to them, they buy it. To my surprise it worked pretty well too and I got almost as much for my car as I'd have realistically got waiting for months on a classifieds site or whatever. I imagine the way the British used car market works has a big impact on the idea actu…

http://www.carmax.com/ does that in the US, they have a business model of no haggling and give some gaurantees on the cars they sell.

Re: Show HN: InstaMotor – Taking the pain out of selling your car

#32

Post by ValG »

callmeed wrote: post #29

You should really move the "Now Serving The Bay Area" message above the fold. I would have signed-up and used you right away (want to sell my Honda Element).

Hey Callmeed. Thanks for the note. We've actually debated this back and forth a little bit. Right now we (admittedly) have a ton of stuff on the front page, we didn't want to clutter it too much. We'll re-evalute this based on your suggestions and might make some updates today.

Re: Show HN: InstaMotor – Taking the pain out of selling your car

#35

Post by rg81 »

chadwickthebold wrote: post #28

One point - take a look at the copy on your pricing slider. 'You Earn' makes it sound like that's all I'm going to get out of this deal. It took me a second to realize it was the difference between the dealership and instamotor.

I did the exact same thing. I typically don't make "me too" replies, but I hope the extra data point is helpful in this case. Great idea, this looks like something I'd be interested in using sometime in the future.

Re: Show HN: InstaMotor – Taking the pain out of selling your car

#36

Post by ValG »

chadwickthebold wrote: post #28

One point - take a look at the copy on your pricing slider. 'You Earn' makes it sound like that's all I'm going to get out of this deal. It took me a second to realize it was the difference between the dealership and instamotor.

Hey Chad,

Thanks for the note. Yeah you're right. We'll make the update to clarify that. We had it as "saved" before, but that didn't seem to make sense. Still trying to find the right wording, but we'll update it today or over the weekend most likely. Thank you!

Re: Show HN: InstaMotor – Taking the pain out of selling your car

#37

Post by yid »

exue wrote: post #26

Great service! A lot of people don't have experience or simply don't want to deal with the Craigslist experience. Putting another option between a private party sale and the dealer is great. Questions that immediately come to mind - how do you handle negotiations, and how do buyers pay? How do you pay the seller afterward? (cash, verifying a cashier's check - other comments point out the common scams etc.) (Or is Ins…

> Also, how do you filter out non-serious buyers, especially for performance vehicles

I cannot emphasize the importance of this. I have a 2005 Lotus Elise that I would love to part with, but I'm really, really nervous about an inexperienced driver blowing the clutch or just coming over for a joyride.

Re: Show HN: InstaMotor – Taking the pain out of selling your car

#38

Post by ValG »

m52go wrote: post #34

Kill CarMax. Decentralize it. The sheer number of resources one dealership consumes boggles my mind: all the people, the mechanics, the land, the land, the land, oh, and the other acres of land.

I used to work in a car dealership group. The inefficiencies are terrifying. That's what led to this.

Re: Show HN: InstaMotor – Taking the pain out of selling your car

#39

Post by ryan_j_naughton »

Your "Get started today" form is failing for me.

Instead I am getting this error: Sorry, we're not able to save your info at this time. And the div with that error is added each time I submit the form so you can get them to start stacking on each other.

× Sorry, we're not able to save your info at this time.

Re: Show HN: InstaMotor – Taking the pain out of selling your car

#40

Post by ValG »

amalag wrote: post #31
petercooper wrote: post #23

It's a totally different business model to this but http://www.webuyanycar.com/ is a pretty big deal here in the UK. You get a valuation, take your car to them, they buy it. To my surprise it worked pretty well too and I got almost as much for my car as I'd have realistically got waiting for months on a classifieds site or whatever. I imagine the way the British used car market works has a big impact on the idea actu…

http://www.carmax.com/ does that in the US, they have a business model of no haggling and give some gaurantees on the cars they sell.

Yes, CarMax is sort of the model that we looked at. They are the only player in town that had the scale necessary to apply modern business management principals to their business. But they're margins are paper thin. Too much overhead.
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